Episode 157: Civilization A New Dawn, Onward to Venus, Anachrony and Immersion in Board Games

Episode released on Wednesday, April 18, 2018

In today's episode we talk about our Fireball Island Party at Beer Mongers and Steve's Film Debut. Then the gang takes a look at Civilization A New Dawn and look back at both Onward to Venus and Anachrony. Then after Tony T provides a deep look at all of the most important tabletop gaming headlines while the rest of the gang cracks wise, the founders talk about immersion on board gaming.

Opening Banter and Reviews

Feature Review: Civilization: A New Dawn

Sid Meier's Civilization: A New Dawn is a strategy board game in which two to four players act as the rulers of history's most memorable empires. Over the course of the game, players will expand their domains, gain new technologies, and build many of humanity's greatest wonders. In the end, one nation will rise above all others to leave its indelible mark upon history. This new game presents players with an undiscovered country to conquer, built from beautifully illustrated map tiles. These would-be conquerors construct and populate the map with barbarians, natural resources, and city-states, then formulate their plans for how they will shape this world to their vision. Their exact goals, however, change with each game. Agendas are detailed on victory cards, three of which are drawn during set up. Players race to become the first to accomplish one agenda on each of these victory cards, spreading throughout the world and ensuring their civilization’s place as the greatest world power.

Lookback Review: Onward to Venus

Onward to Venus is based on the Doctor Grordbort graphic novels from writer/artist Greg Broadmore, with those books being a parody of sorts of the British Empire in the late 19th century, but instead of the race for Africa, we now have the exploitation of the Solar System, which is populated by various natives who resent the Earthling settlers. The game Onward to Venus takes lots of artwork from the books and mixes it together to create an empire-building game set in the Solar System. The core rules are fairly straightforward, and a game can be completed in 90 minutes. The game is played over three turns; in each turn you whizz around the planets and moons claiming tiles. The tiles grant you cards, allow you to build a factory or mine, let you hunt strange beasts, or simply earn you some money. Other tiles allow you to attack other players or add to the crisis level on the planet/moon in question. You have to be careful with crisis tiles as if you let too many build up, bad stuff — Martian invasions, robot rebellions, space pirates, etc. — starts happening.

Lookback Review: Anachrony

It is the late 26th century. Earth is recovering from a catastrophic explosion that exterminated the majority of the population centuries ago and made most of the surface uninhabitable due to unearthly weather conditions. The surviving humans organized along four radically different ideologies, called Paths, to rebuild the world as they see fit: Harmony, Dominance, Progress, and Salvation. Followers of the four Paths live in a fragile peace, but in almost complete isolation next to each other. Their only meeting point is the last major city on Earth, now just known as the Capital.

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The Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast couldn't be happier to be sponsored by a great publisher and close personal friend Stephen Buonocore of Stronghold Games. We have been partnered with Stronghold games for over 4 years and we continue because we respect their the quality and integrity and feel good about promoting their products. Please take some time to check out their website at StrongholdGames.com.

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The Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast couldn't be happier to be sponsored by a great publisher and close personal friend Stephen Buonocore of Stronghold Games. We have been partnered with Stronghold games for over 4 years and we continue because we respect their the quality and integrity and feel good about promoting their products. Please take some time to check out their website at StrongholdGames.com.

About The Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast

Five old friends of more than 20 years come together to produce a high quality, bi-weekly podcast about tabletop gaming of all kinds: board games, card games, miniatures, role-playing games and much more. In each episode you can expect board game reviews, gaming industry news and round-table discussions. The Founders, Jamie, Tony, Chris, Steve and Brian, each have varying tastes in gaming to provide a variety of viewpoints. Since 2011, over 100 full length episodes and now more with our new additional show, The Secret Cabal Express, The Secret Cabal has grown to one of the most successful tabletop gaming podcasts in the community. The Founders continue striving to offer irreverent entertainment, thoughtful commentary and enthusiasm about a hobby we love.

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The Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast reaches a significant amount of listeners and is continually growing with each new episode. Providing review copies of board games, card games and miniatures games is a great way for game publishers to showcase their products and also helps us cover a wide variety of games. If you are interested in sending review copies to the show, please send to: